In this month's elections, Washington state, the land of Starbucks and grunge, elected to legalize same-sex marriage. Washington is also home to Microsoft and Bill Gates (who by the way, gave a total of $600,000 to the Washington fight for same-sex marriage) and a bevy of companies and other executives.

The company is in the middle of contract negotiations with its bargaining with the union that represents its engineers, technicians, and clerical workers, SPEEA. Things are are not going so well. The union just rejected the company's second proposal and a strike-authorization vote is now looming in the distance.

Boeing is also getting some negative press over reports that they plan to refuse equal pension benefits to married same-sex couples. In Boeing's ideal world: when an old dorky gay engineer dies, his husband will have to scrape by on his own just to get by.

Ray Goforth, the executive director of Boeing's union, told The Stranger that Boeing is claiming that "pensions are governed by federal law, which doesn't recognize same-sex marriage, thereby trumping the state law on the matter."

This is why the supreme court needs to rule on Prop 8 already. It'll decide if companies can continue to skate around laws, or if they should just shut up and give fair pay to their loyal employees. Hoping for the latter here obviously.